Recently, the popular video game Minecraft got its 17th update — Part 1 of The Caves and Cliffs Update or 1.17. In Part 1, we got most of the blocks and mobs of that release and the world generation changes and other blocks and mobs, like the Skulk Sensor and Warden, coming in winter with The Caves and Cliffs Update Part 2.

The cave update might have been the most-demanded update by the players community, and the cliffs part was added because the mountains biome won the biome vote by the players. Another vote held at Minecraft LIVE 2020 was the mob vote, where the winner was the glow squid.

The glow squid won the vote even though it was a retextured squid because Dream, a Youtuber with 23 million subscribers, tweeted to vote for the glow squid. Many were upset about that, as they wanted to see the Iceologer added, but all they got was a retextured squid. Thankfully, Mojang (company behind Minecraft) made the best of the vote and added some cool functionality to the mob. It drops glow ink sacs, which when you right click on signs, it will make the text glow and it can also be combined with item frames to make the glow item frames.

Another aquatic mob added was the Axolotl, which hunts hostile underwater mobs alongside the player and will play dead to regenerate health. On the peaks of the Minecraft mountains, we got the goat which would attack any mob and screams. From the top to the bottom, Mojang added a new ore type, copper. It even has its real-life ability to oxidise after a long time, but to prevent that you can coat it in honeycomb. Still in the caves, we got no new biomes but we got a lot of the new blocks, such as dripstone, stalagmites, stalactites, tuff, deepslate and the new deepslate versions of the ores.

Speaking of ores, the classic ores of Minecraft, except diamond, got new texture changes which have some mixed reactions. Now when you mine iron, gold and copper without the silk touch enchantment on your tool, you will get raw versions of them, which can be crafted into blocks. To find the moss block and the drip leaf plant, you need to go treasure hunting in shipwrecks.

A new structure has been added in the caves, the amethyst geodes which spawn with a layer of calcite around the amethyst and another layer of smooth basalt around it, making it look like a real geode. In them you can find amethyst clusters and using them you can craft a spy glass, which allows you to zoom.

Other miscellaneous items added in this update are candles, which can be placed on their own or on cake, the lightning rod which will attract all lightning on it, bundles which hold 64 items but they can hold multiple types of items in one inventory slot, powdered snow and powdered snow cauldrons, lava cauldrons, azalea bushes and azalea leaves, glow berries, glow lichen and spore blossom.

This update has so many new features and items and its just Part 1 of the whole update. I think everyone, including me, are super excited at this update and it would be so cool when the new biomes come later in winter. After this update, I want to see what 1.18 is about. I am really hoping it would be an inventory/item management update, because now there are so many items and so many new items getting added constantly, it would be great to get a inventory upgrade.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 26th, 2021